News

Quite at home with the dead

We have to touch peoples lives at a very low time and if we can help, its very rewarding When Mary Fairbairns children left her suburban home, the house seemed as quiet as a morgue. So she decided to turn it into a funeral parlour, writes Krishnendu Majumdar

Mary Fairbairn is 55 years old. A grandmother. She lives on her own in a large Victorian house in the Piershill area of Edinburgh. So far, so normal. But what are those urns doing in the corner of the living room? And is that really a coffin in the dining room? Then there is the back garden. Instead of an ornamental wishing well or perhaps a bird table, there is a sea of gravestones.

Fairbairn has transformed the suburban home, in which she brought up her family, into a funeral parlour. When her children grew up and moved away, she thought the place was as quiet as a morgue — so she turned it into one.

There were a few changes to be made before she could open up shop. She transformed her son’s bedroom into a service room where mourners who do not care for a church ceremony can say